After sustaining an unfortunate injury while distracted by her phone, Alice Neville takes a deeper look at the issue.
Brain rot, vision problems, anxiety, sleep disruption, reduced social skills: the myriad ways mobile phones are fucking with us are well known. But I’m living, limping proof of the lesser-known, more physical risks of these cursed devices.
A couple of months ago, while strolling down an inner-city Auckland street, I suddenly found myself on the ground, intense pain emanating from my ankle/foot area. I had come a cropper in a dip in the footpath because my eyes had been glued to my phone, rather than where I was going.
Seven deeply tedious crutches-and-moonboot-dominated weeks later, I’m still seething with self-loathing and regret at my stupidity and clumsiness. And now, despite expecting to be fully shamed by our beloved Spinoff members in the comments section below for admitting to being a “smartphone zombie” or “digital deadwalker”, I’m sharing my misfortune with others in the hope that you won’t repeat my mistake.
I take some comfort in the fact I’m not alone in sustaining a phone-related injury. Spinoff editor Veronica Schmidt was recently watching something on her phone, semi-reclined, when the device slipped from her grasp and clocked her on the schnoz, causing it to bleed. Writer Emma Gleason admitted to a similar mishap that left her with a forehead bruise, as well as once having sliced her hand with a smashed phone screen. One colleague sanctimoniously cast aspersions on us by suggesting that maybe the phones weren’t to blame here, but other Spinoffers guiltily revealed they’d dropped phones on babies, cats and other vulnerable family members.
So how big is the problem? ACC data provided to The Spinoff records just over 19,000 phone-related injury claims made between 2016 and 2026 to date. There’s been a small but steady uptick in such claims during that time, with 17% more made in 2025 than 2016.
But this data likely represents a mere drop in an ocean of cellular mishaps. The figures are drawn from the “accident description” field on ACC claim forms, and the level of detail given here ranges widely from client to client (often the form is filled out by a medical professional rather than the injured person). It also includes only injuries serious enough to warrant making an ACC claim.
While my colleagues’ face vs phone incidents didn’t result in medical treatment being needed or ACC claims being lodged, many have: “face” was the most commonly listed primary injury site for phone-related ACC claims between 2016 and 2026, followed by lower back and neck. Soft tissue injuries (sprains, strains, bruises and the like) were the most common type by some degree, making up more than half of claims. This was followed by lacerations and dental injuries (ouch). Complex multi-fracture mid-foot injuries like mine weirdly didn’t feature.
The most commonly listed cause of injury was “loss of balance/personal control” (guilty), but “collision/knocked over by object” and “lifting/carrying/strain” also featured regularly. Rather than this being evidence of a spate of hurled phone assaults and TikTok-related RSI, ACC injury prevention leader James Whitaker reckons it “shows that injuries are occurring when we are distracted by our mobile phones or using them while we’re trying to do other things”. He advises people to “avoid using your phone when you’re doing things and going places”.
Fair call, but when am I not doing things and/or going places? Multitasking is a way of life in the modern age. While those in the 15-19 age bracket made the most phone-related claims over the 10-and-a-bit-year period, for the last two years, 30- to 34-year-olds beat the teens for the top spot, perhaps suggesting that trying to do it all is beginning to take its toll on those juggling careers, relationships and family commitments; ie those approaching the peak phase of “adulting”.
Then there are phone-related car accidents, which weren’t captured by these ACC figures. According to NZTA data, between 2020 and mid-2025, 669 injuries were caused by crashes where a contributing factor was “attention diverted by cell phone”, including 30 deaths. As for pedestrians? Various studies have found that yes, being distracted by a phone when crossing the road increases your risk of being hit by a car, but let’s not ped-blame: driver error is a far bigger cause of car-vs-pedestrian accidents.
On that note, I hope we can all learn from this article, rather than ridiculing clumsy phone-addicted idiots like me. Or at least learn and ridicule. And remember, it could’ve been worse: at least I wasn’t taking a selfie.
